(Enter Cynthia.)
Cynthia.
Since then the ear cannot be closed,
And thou resistance need'st not try,
Listen to the gloss that I
On this sweet conceit composed:
"The blesséd rapture of forgetting
Never doth my heart deserve;
What my memory would preserve
Is the memory I 'm regretting".
When Nature from the void obscure
Her varied world to life awakes,
All things find use and so endure:—
Thus she a poison never makes
Without its corresponding cure:
Each thing of Nature's careful setting,
Each plant that grows in field or grove
Hath got its opposite flower or weed;
The cure is with the pain decreed;
Thus too is found for feverish love
The blesséd rapture of forgetting.
The starry wonders of the night,
The arbiters of fate on high,
Nothing can dim: To see their light
Is easy, but to draw more nigh
The orbs themselves, exceeds our might.
Thus 't is to know, and only know,
The troubled heart, the trembling nerve,
To sweet oblivion's blank may owe
Their rest, but, ah! that cure of woe
Never doth my heart deserve.
Then what imports it that there be,
For all the ills of heart or brain,
A sweet oblivious remedy,
If it, when 't is applied to me,
Fails to cure me of my pain?
Forgetfulness in me doth serve
No useful purpose: But why fret
My heart at this? Do I deserve,
Strange contradiction! to forget
What my memory would preserve?
And thus my pain in straits like these,
Must needs despise the only sure
Remedial means of partial ease—
That is—to perish of the cure
Rather than die of the disease.
Then not in wailing or in fretting,
My love, accept thy fate, but let
This victory o'er myself, to thee
Bring consolation, pride, and glee,
Since what I wish not to forget
Is the memory I 'm regretting.
Chrysanthus.
'T is not through the voice alone
Music breathes its soft enchantment.[10]
All things that in concord blend
Find in music their one language.
Thou with thy delicious sweetness [To Nisida]
Host my heart at once made captive;—
Thou with thy melodious verses [To Cynthia]
Hast my very soul enraptured.
Ah! how subtly thou dost reason!
Ah! how tenderly thou chantest!
Thou with thy artistic skill,
Thou with thy clear understanding.
But what say I? I speak falsely,
For you both are sphinxes rather,
Who with flattering words seduce me
But to ruin me hereafter:—
Leave me; go: I cannot listen
To your wiles.
Nisida.
My lord, oh! hearken
To my song once more.
Cynthia.
Wait! stay!
Nisida.
Why thus treat with so much harshness
Those who mourn thy deep dejection?